Northern Ohio Obs/Discussion Part 2

[NEOH]

7 minutes ago, dta1984 said:

Sounds good!  Noticed cle toned back the wording and isn't using significant .   Wouls think we will see watches by tomorrow.  Hopefully it pans out for a good portion of the area.

Sure looks like we will be riding a fine line in the lr with snow and rain.  Maybe laying down a good les snowpack will help.

BUF issued watches already for 1 - 2 feet. I'm sure CLE will issue watches later today or tomorrow. Should be a decent event... we'll probably be on the south side of the heaviest snows but winds turn enough for us to get in the good stuff for awhile.

[Trent]

Inland areas should do well, I'm sure watches will go out tonight. 

From personal experience, windy events aren't good for lower elevation areas, so I'm not expecting much. CLE highlights this in their AFD, saying they don't expect a mega band to develop with the wind sheer. The wind direction looks almost ideal at this point though, but that's saying a lot when the event is 2.5 days away. 

The Friday morning commute is going to be awful for 480 and 271.

[OHweather]

Definitely looks interesting coming up. I'll probably be about 10 miles too far south, but that's what a car is for I guess.

A few disagreements with CLE. With a pretty sharp little trough dropping southeast Thursday night, I definitely expect a strong single band to form over the lake Thursday evening...initially this may just graze the NE OH lakeshore and impact Erie County PA and SW NY more directly, and this could quickly produce several inches there Thursday evening. The "shear" CLE noted is an extremely obvious signal for the trough coming through and switching winds around to the WNW. Most of the times when this happens a strong band gradually pushes SW through the NE OH Snowbelt and gets into a good portion of Cuyahoga County. I'll grant that this setup isn't conducive to the band locking in for any period of time in one spot, but I do expect a pretty strong band to push into the Cleveland metro late Thursday night/early Friday morning. How quickly the band moves will determine if it just drops an inch or 4" as it pushes SW Thursday night. The NAM is pretty gradual with the wind change and could allow it to move slow enough to drop a few inches in spots.

By Friday morning the models lock in a fairly well-aligned WNW flow with winds in the mixed layer 25 knots or less. This may be a little too strong for the immediate lakeshore to do really well, but I think the wind direction/lack of shear, along with high pressure nosing into the Ohio Valley from the west, supports at least a loosely organized band persisting across most of the Cleveland metro and into Geauga County for most of Friday. Instability is moderate to extreme and moisture looks good, so this could drop another couple to locally several inches during the day Friday. This may be my window to pick up like 3" in extreme NE Summit County. Winds gradually start backing Friday night as high pressure noses in, but instability and moisture remain decent, so even though the snow will start gradually shifting NE Friday night it could be heavy enough to drop another few inches on the primary NE OH Snowbelt Friday night. The low level ridge axis doesn't get to NW PA until Saturday evening, so they may see decent snow through most of Saturday up there.

Right now I'm loosely thinking 8-14" in northern Geauga County and southern Lake County, and 6-10" amounts surrounding that from the Heights suburbs into more of Geauga County. There could be a pretty sharp southern cutoff in SE Cuyahoga and southern Geauga County, and this could be near or just north of 422. This setup will probably drop a few inches closer to the lake from Cleveland into the western suburbs...whether the immediate shoreline sees that much is questionable. NW PA could see well over a foot, particularly in the higher terrain just inland from the lake in Erie County.

I'm a little bit irritated that CLE isn't even including Cuyahoga County in the hazardous weather outlook for the LES. They had a ridiculous mental block on issuing any lake effect products for Cuyahoga County last winter when the flow was WNW, and it looks like they're going to continue that this winter.

[NEOH]

37 minutes ago, OHweather said:

Definitely looks interesting coming up. I'll probably be about 10 miles too far south, but that's what a car is for I guess.

A few disagreements with CLE. With a pretty sharp little trough dropping southeast Thursday night, I definitely expect a strong single band to form over the lake Thursday evening...initially this may just graze the NE OH lakeshore and impact Erie County PA and SW NY more directly, and this could quickly produce several inches there Thursday evening. The "shear" CLE noted is an extremely obvious signal for the trough coming through and switching winds around to the WNW. Most of the times when this happens a strong band gradually pushes SW through the NE OH Snowbelt and gets into a good portion of Cuyahoga County. I'll grant that this setup isn't conducive to the band locking in for any period of time in one spot, but I do expect a pretty strong band to push into the Cleveland metro late Thursday night/early Friday morning. How quickly the band moves will determine if it just drops an inch or 4" as it pushes SW Thursday night. The NAM is pretty gradual with the wind change and could allow it to move slow enough to drop a few inches in spots.

By Friday morning the models lock in a fairly well-aligned WNW flow with winds in the mixed layer 25 knots or less. This may be a little too strong for the immediate lakeshore to do really well, but I think the wind direction/lack of shear, along with high pressure nosing into the Ohio Valley from the west, supports at least a loosely organized band persisting across most of the Cleveland metro and into Geauga County for most of Friday. Instability is moderate to extreme and moisture looks good, so this could drop another couple to locally several inches during the day Friday. This may be my window to pick up like 3" in extreme NE Summit County. Winds gradually start backing Friday night as high pressure noses in, but instability and moisture remain decent, so even though the snow will start gradually shifting NE Friday night it could be heavy enough to drop another few inches on the primary NE OH Snowbelt Friday night. The low level ridge axis doesn't get to NW PA until Saturday evening, so they may see decent snow through most of Saturday up there.

Right now I'm loosely thinking 8-14" in northern Geauga County and southern Lake County, and 6-10" amounts surrounding that from the Heights suburbs into more of Geauga County. There could be a pretty sharp southern cutoff in SE Cuyahoga and southern Geauga County, and this could be near or just north of 422. This setup will probably drop a few inches closer to the lake from Cleveland into the western suburbs...whether the immediate shoreline sees that much is questionable. NW PA could see well over a foot, particularly in the higher terrain just inland from the lake in Erie County.

I'm a little bit irritated that CLE isn't even including Cuyahoga County in the hazardous weather outlook for the LES. They had a ridiculous mental block on issuing any lake effect products for Cuyahoga County last winter when the flow was WNW, and it looks like they're going to continue that this winter.

C'mon... your killing me! But yeah, we will be riding a fine line as usual. Last year was pretty painful for LES as the heaviest snows were just a few miles north of us. DTA and I are about 3 miles North of 422. 290 is about the ideal direction for this area... anything less and congrats 322.

[OHweather]

19 minutes ago, NEOH said:

C'mon... your killing me! But yeah, we will be riding a fine line as usual. Last year was pretty painful for LES as the heaviest snows were just a few miles north of us. DTA and I are about 3 miles North of 422. 290 is about the ideal direction for this area... anything less and congrats 322.

 I suspect you'll do fairly well, but will be close to that cutoff. Down my way I'll be happy with 3" 

[Trent]

57 minutes ago, OHweather said:

I'm a little bit irritated that CLE isn't even including Cuyahoga County in the hazardous weather outlook for the LES. They had a ridiculous mental block on issuing any lake effect products for Cuyahoga County last winter when the flow was WNW, and it looks like they're going to continue that this winter.

The lack of spotters in the eastern suburbs doesn't help, which is surprising considering there's easily a half million people in the eastern Cuyahoga County higher elevations. Splitting Cuyahoga into 2 or 3 zones would help and so would using polygon winter products. 

As always, appreciate your insight and forecasts on the weather here!

 

[NEOH]

BUF issued LES Warnings already... 2-3 ft. in the most persistent bands. Gotta love WNY... long fetch and a lot elevation. I'd be happy with half of that around here.

[OHweather]

2 hours ago, Trent said:

The lack of spotters in the eastern suburbs doesn't help, which is surprising considering there's easily a half million people in the eastern Cuyahoga County higher elevations. Splitting Cuyahoga into 2 or 3 zones would help and so would using polygon winter products. 

As always, appreciate your insight and forecasts on the weather here!

 

Solon and Euclid tend to have fairly reliable spotters, but in between we only occasionally get reports from Shaker, Beachwood, and Mayfield Heights. Those middle 3 are really helpful in these setups if they report.

And I'm just hoping for a good winter since I'm here for it, may be out east next winter.

[Jim Martin]

12z Euro basically saying Deep Freeze & Plentiful snow pack by next week...

[NEOH]

15 minutes ago, OHweather said:

Solon and Euclid tend to have fairly reliable spotters, but in between we only occasionally get reports from Shaker, Beachwood, and Mayfield Heights. Those middle 3 are really helpful in these setups if they report.

And I'm just hoping for a good winter since I'm here for it, may be out east next winter.

There used to be a reliable spotter in Pepper Pike as well. The 91 corridor between Mayfield Rd. and Chagrin Blvd. usually does very well with snow.

[Buckeye_Weather]

@OHweather, I live in Shaker and would be happy to send in snow reports!

[dta1984]

Long range GFS sure has alot of snow.....but also some really cold temps.  Unfortunately the western basin will probably start to ice over soon..

[dta1984]

First map from cle looks like on the border of 6-8 .. 8-12 around here with more towards the lake county border.   

Just as the lake effect winds down maybe more snow on Sunday ?   Won't take much to beat the past few December snow totals combined.  

http://www.weather.gov/cle/Winter_Weather

 

[NEOH]

48 minutes ago, dta1984 said:

First map from cle looks like on the border of 6-8 .. 8-12 around here with more towards the lake county border.   

Just as the lake effect winds down maybe more snow on Sunday ?   Won't take much to beat the past few December snow totals combined.  

http://www.weather.gov/cle/Winter_Weather

 

Seems like a reasonable map. Although winds coming around WNW'erly (280-290) for good amount of time there should be a decent Lake MI connection... you would think there would be higher snowfall amounts further west. Lake effect is a crap shoot so who knows... but hopefully we can exceed 6-8" around here.

 

[Trent]

A few of the high res models this afternoon show best QPF from mid Lake County and points north through Friday morning. Winds should be a little more NW late morning Friday so hopefully those bands slide a bit more south. 

[NEOH]

Pretty big changes to CLE's snowfall map. They expanded snowfall amount south/west, and increased amounts across the board.

 

 

 

[OHweather]

That CLE map from the AM isn't extremely far off from my thinking. I'll probably post my forecast at the normal time, like 2am 

[OHweather]

Interesting update. Working so damn much this week but I'm gonna take a good look tonight. Should be a decent event. 

[NEOH]

49 minutes ago, OHweather said:

Interesting update. Working so damn much this week but I'm gonna take a good look tonight. Should be a decent event. 

Are you done with school? If so, can you go back to get your masters so you have more time to provide us with forecasts . Joking of course. This event has some red flags for those of us on the southern edge.

[OHweather]

2 hours ago, NEOH said:

Are you done with school? If so, can you go back to get your masters so you have more time to provide us with forecasts . Joking of course. This event has some red flags for those of us on the southern edge.

Yes, I am done. This would have been finals week had I not been done, so it's more than somewhat possible that I would've been busier at school than I am at home this week...go figure. If I get 2 or 3" I'd be happy...then maybe some synoptic over the weekend.

[OHweather]

An unseasonably deep trough will move across the Great Lakes Thursday through Saturday, bringing with it a deep cold air mass, sufficient moisture, and a broad cyclonic flow across the warmer than average Great Lakes. This will result in the second lake effect snow event downwind of Lake Erie of the season. This one will be of longer duration, favor lighter winds, a longer fetch, and colder temperatures, likely resulting in much more substantial totals than the first one (2-6” in NE OH).

As the cyclonic flow begins developing over the region Thursday morning, a band of snow will likely develop over the lake and hug the lakeshore in Lake and Ashtabula Counties, before moving into Erie County PA and Chautauqua/Cattaraugus County NY. The band will likely hug the north half of those counties. We’ll actually be in a region of subsidence with mid-level drying through early Thursday afternoon behind a shortwave trough moving over the region early Thursday morning, however the long fetch and moderate instability will likely allow decent accums to being across parts of NW PA/SW NY on Thursday with this band.

By Thursday evening, a weaker shortwave or vort max is expected to drop across Lake Erie between 5-10PM. This will cause inversions to rise and mid-level moisture to increase, while also bringing a surface trough and wind shift with it. The winds will shift from WSW in the low levels to more of a W Thursday evening as this trough pushes through. This will likely push heavier snow into the NE OH lakeshore Thursday evening and push it a bit farther inland of NW PA and SW NY. With the passage of this first trough, inversion heights will increase to around 10k feet and moisture depth will increase to around 8k feet, allowing the intensity of the lake effect to increase:

Although the shear looks bad, it’s much better aligned over the lake, and will result in strong convergence near the lakeshore as stronger, W to WNW winds over the lake run into weaker WSW winds over land. The stronger WNW winds over water will try to push the snow inland some Thursday evening, however the WSW winds over land suggest the better snow will hug extreme NE Cuyahoga County, Lake County, Geauga County along and north of US 6, the northern half of Ashtabula County and into Erie County through Thursday evening. The instability and moisture support snow rates of over 1” per hour assuming convergence can develop as it appears it should and focus better snow in the aforementioned area.

The 12km NAM does show this zone of convergence, extending from as far west as Lorain County into inland Erie County PA, with the convergence stronger farther east. This favors moderate to heavy snow in the northern NE OH primary Snowbelt and into a good chunk of Erie County PA (and also the ski-country in SW NY) Thursday night. The convergence will not move much for several hours, so several inches could be picked up in these areas Thursday evening into the overnight, with locally over 8” in NW PA/SW NY through 4am Friday where a longer fetch, more terrain, and seemingly stronger convergence could contribute to heavier snow.

Between 4am and 10am Friday, another shortwave will rotate around the larger trough to our northeast. Although the upper level shortwave stays to our northeast, the surface reflection will move southeast across Lake Erie as a well-defined trough. This will initially really increase convergence along the lakeshore early Friday as winds back a little bit on land ahead of the trough, and turn more WNW to even NW over the lake behind the trough. The upper level support for this surface trough will stay to our northeast, and the surface trough will be moving into high pressure nosing into the Ohio Valley, so it’s questionable how quickly this trough pushes through.

Regardless of how quickly the trough pushes through Friday morning, conditions for lake effect will go from “pretty good” to “pretty outstanding” Friday morning, with moisture depth improving to 10k feet, inversions rising to 13-15k feet, and winds in the low levels weakening a little bit and increasing residence time over the lake. Lake to 850mb, 700mb, and 500mb differentials will push or exceed 20C, 30C, and 40C Friday morning as the trough pushes through…all of these values are “extreme” and support a few lightning strikes with any good snow bands Friday morning near the lake. Snow rates of 2” per hour are quite possible with the band along the surface trough Friday morning.

The question is, how quickly does the trough and band push south? I suspect the heart of the primary Snowbelt…far NE Cuyahoga, southern Lake, northern Geauga…will see a few hours of very good snow ahead of and along this trough given the W to slightly S of due W wind direction ahead of the trough. From there, winds only go WNW behind the trough, with the best upper support remaining well NE, and with surface ridging nosing into the Ohio Valley. This suggests that the trough will not push south super-fast, and may not push the snow band farther south than northern Lorain County/southern Cuyahoga County/the Geauga/Portage County border. This may drop a quick 1-4” on much of the Cleveland metro as well as southern Geauga County, inland Ashtabula County, and southern Erie/most of Crawford County PA given likely intense snow rates and gradual progression of the trough and accompanying snow band.

Behind the trough for late Friday morning and afternoon, shear is weak, the flow is a favorable WNW and not too strong, instability remains extreme with high inversion heights, and moisture depth remains respectable. Decent lake effect snow should continue. The big questions for Friday behind the trough will be whether some sort of band can maintain itself across the southern Snowbelt and allow for a more focused area of moderate to heavy snow, and whether or not we can get any upstream connections. The environment is pretty freakin good for lake effect snow on Friday, so it’s just a matter of capitalizing on it:

The WNW low level flow does suggest a continued connection off of southern Lake Michigan through the day Friday, which would suggest some decent snow in the Cleveland metro and primary Snowbelt in NE OH. This flow would take the Lake Superior connection (which is actually rather common) into NW PA. The 850mb flow is a bit more NWrly and takes the southern Lake MI connection south of Lake Erie and takes the upper lakes connection into the Cleveland metro and Snowbelt. The well aligned low level flow off of lower Lake MI and some convergence along the way suggests that connection may contribute to snow in the Cleveland metro on Friday, with upstream lakes keeping things going in NW PA/far SW NY during the day behind the trough.

Convergence will probably weaken some Friday with an absence of a trough to our NW, and also with temps on land warming up some and decreasing the temp differential over the lake a little bit. Regardless, remnant convergence from the morning band and some remaining lake to land temp and wind differentials should allow some loosely organized snow to persist on Friday across the Cleveland metro and southern Snowbelt. I don’t expect a firehose band, but with such a good thermodynamic profile and some pre-seeding from Lake Michigan there could be good bursts that add up to at least a couple to few inches during the day Friday behind the trough. This will be the best chance for parts of Lorain, Medina, Summit, Portage, southern Trumbull and Mahoning Counties (particularly northern portions of this corridor) to see some accumulation.

A good question is how much of a break will the northern primary Snowbelt see on Friday during the late morning and afternoon. In NW PA and SW NY, there doesn’t look to be strong convergence, but there may be decent connections to Lake Huron and Lakes Superior/Michigan (northern). This may cause snow to shut off along the shore (outside of any upstream connections) but decent snow could keep going in the higher terrain, particularly in any upstream connections. In NE OH, I expect northern Ashtabula and Lake Counties to see snow really slow down and possibly shut off Friday late morning and afternoon…however, convergence and orographic lift just inland may allow at least snow showers to continue in far southern Lake County, Geauga County, and southern Ashtabula County in the higher terrain…though they may become less organized. This may support a few inches behind the trough in the higher terrain of Erie and northern Crawford County in NW PA and a couple inches in far southern Lake County/northern Geauga County in NE OH through Friday afternoon…with perhaps a few inches a little farther south in NE OH where convergence tries to persist.

There may be an interesting setup Friday night into Saturday morning as ridging builds closer and slowly backs winds. There is pretty good agreement on a good southern Lake Michigan connection developing Friday evening, with the potential for strong convergence developing near the central lakeshore as temps cool on land and as winds on and go light and southwesterly:

This could favor a more organized convergence band re-developing Friday evening and persisting into Saturday morning. With a W or WNW wind initially, this band could initially develop over northern Cuyahoga and central Geauga County before slowly shifting north later Friday night into Saturday morning. Conditions will remain favorable for decent LES through Friday night before degrading Saturday morning:

Upper level temps warm a little bit, but the low and mid levels remain plenty unstable and moisture Friday night for heavy snow rates should a band form. Any upstream connection would only increase the likelihood of heavy snow Friday night, and the somewhat weaker low level flow may also favor heavyier snow. Winds suggest this band will shift to northeastern Lake, northern Ashtabula, and Erie PA counties by sunrise Saturday. Snow rates of 1-2” per hour may be possible under this band, with the potential for the band to persist long enough to drop a few or locally several inches Friday night. Winds should shift enough to finally push the band out of Erie County PA by mid to late Saturday afternoon, bringing this event to a close.

As for accumulations…I expect 2-6” through mid Thursday afternoon in northern Erie County PA and into northern Chautauqua/Cattaraugus County NY with a WSW flow band that should start developing by morning and become fairly intense by afternoon. Coastal Lake and Ashtabula Counties may see a light accumulation from this.

By Thursday evening I expect the snow to intensify and push a bit farther south, and this could produce another few inches (3-6”?) through Thursday evening in Chautauqua/Cattaraugus County NY, Erie County PA and Lake and northern Ashtabula County in OH as the first trough pushes through and winds go more westerly. Far NE Cuyahoga and northern Geauga may also see light accumulations through Thursday evening. These accumulations in NW PA and SW NY should be focused a bit south of where the initial band will dump through mid-afternoon.

Thursday evening into the overnight will likely see the band hold steady or shift ever so slightly farther south with a WSW surface flow on land and WNW flow over the lake. Lake effect conditions gradually improve, and this could produce another few inches (2-6”) through 4AM Friday in far NE Cuyahoga, northern Geauga, Lake, northern Ashtabula, and Erie PA (into inland SW NY). The band will intensify ahead of the next trough and then gradually push south into the Cleveland metro and southern Snowbelt. This whole process could produce a few inches in the northern Snowbelt initially while the band intensifies early Friday, and then 1-4” in the southern Snowbelt and Cleveland metro through mid Friday morning as the band swings south.

Friday late morning through afternoon may feature the snow becoming less organized…however upstream connections, longer fetch and upslope into NW PA may produce a few more inches in this timeframe, with perhaps a few inches where the remnant convergence band and southern Lake MI connection set up into parts of the Cleveland metro (possibly western and southern suburbs) and southern Snowbelt.

The band Friday night may produce a couple inches in eastern Cuyahoga/southern Geauga and up to several inches in northern Geauga and Lake/Ashtabula and into NW PA as it re-flares and then very slowly shifts NE. NW PA may see some more Saturday morning before it finally ends.

All together…given the potential for multiple instances of banding with moderate to heavy snow, and perhaps even continued accumulating snow showers between periods of banding, think there will be over a foot in the typical hot spots in southern Lake/northern Geauga and inland NW PA. Inland NW PA may see locally up to 2 feet where any upstream lake connections develop on Friday. Drew the sharp southern cut off from northwestern Cuyahoga County southeast through far northern Summit, northern Portage, and Trumbull Counties. Winds get WNW for a time, but lake aggregate troughing tends to be stronger when the lake is warmer, and ridging building in on land suggests the trough/convergence band Friday may not make it extremely far inland. For the Cleveland metro this is tough…may be a couple of windows for banding near the shoreline late Thursday night through Friday evening which could produce a few inches, even down to the shore. Farther east, there may be a good shot of banding through very early Friday another shot Friday night into early Saturday, so amounts along the shore could be decent. There could be graupel near the lake given how warm the water still is which may hurt ratios near the shore and keep higher amounts inland a bit. Inland could see 15-18:1 ratios with temps below freezing for the event.

High res models are iffy on amounts…BUF WRFs look good through early Friday but don’t run out any farther. NMM is similar to this idea but struggles to develop an organized band at times and is lighter on amounts…ARW seems lost. 4km NAM isn’t far off from this idea but also struggles to organize bands and shows lighter precip than you’d expect given the setup, and hence shows much lighter amounts. The 12km NAM and SREF consistently show snow, perhaps in a band, in the Snowbelt, and these low-res models combined with the setup do argued for a prolonged heavy event with good totals in the heart of the Snowbelt. We’ll see.

With all of that said...here's my map:

[dta1984]

Great forecast OHweather ,  thanks for sharing these.   I'd be happy with that for the first big snowfall .   The next few weeks look fun 

The latest cle map seems way too overzealous . 

[NEOH]

13 hours ago, OHweather said:

Yes, I am done. This would have been finals week had I not been done, so it's more than somewhat possible that I would've been busier at school than I am at home this week...go figure. If I get 2 or 3" I'd be happy...then maybe some synoptic over the weekend.

Congrats on finishing school! Nice forecast. Hoping for a slight shift south.

[dta1984]

Congrats on finishing school ohweather!

Cuyahoga now has a watch up.

Interesting that the les warning mentions the heaviest from Chardon to burton .   Would think it would be north of Chardon  

[NEOH]

You can see the snow starting to take shape over the western basin as the winds start to come around... should see the snowpush onshore in NE OH in a few hours. Radar looks great over the lake.

[featherwx]

1 hour ago, NEOH said:

You can see the snow starting to take shape over the western basin as the winds start to come around... should see the snowpush onshore in NE OH in a few hours. Radar looks great over the lake.

Do you think Lorain County will be able to get in on some of the action? Always a razor sharp cutoff between Lorain and Cuyahoga... 

[NEOH]

54 minutes ago, featherwx said:

Do you think Lorain County will be able to get in on some of the action? Always a razor sharp cutoff between Lorain and Cuyahoga... 

Tough call for Lorain. The very northern section may get in on the action if a connection can be established from lake michigan.

[dta1984]

Snow picking up now. In mentor, and there's probably an inch here.  Most snow was just north of Chesterland . 

21z hrr nails cle metro through Geauga 

 

[Trent]

1 hour ago, dta1984 said:

Snow picking up now. In mentor, and there's probably an inch here.  Most snow was just north of Chesterland . 

21z hrr nails cle metro through Geauga 

 

The latest run actually has a 6-10" band through tomorrow morning from about Avon Lake through Downtown Cleveland and then east into Geauga County. There appears to be a small bullseye of about 12" near Westlake. I'm guessing that scenario is out to lunch.

[OHweather]

I highly doubt we get banding as far south as the HRRR shows, but feel pretty good no one will have issues getting expected amounts. We will see where the SW cutoff ends up at.